Assignment Details

Things to remember:

1. Try to orient yourself in the information landscape—who is creating and sharing information about social policy, in what format, and where are they sharing it? This will help you decide where to search.

2. Remember that a lot of relevant information is either not available or easily findable on the Web—use library resources as well as websites.

3. When searching in the Library and on the Web, consider your search terms carefully—good keywords make the difference in finding good results. Add keywords related to specific issues, populations, service contexts, or practice.

4. Pay attention to the details of the document—jurisdiction, date, author, context.

Conducting Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have about 1.3 million e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "public space"

  • "inclusive design"

  • "artificial intelligence"

  • "fast fashion"

  • "#FreeBritney"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • "inclusive design" AND "public libraries"

  • "artificial intelligence" AND labour

• Use OR to connect two or more near synonymous or similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • "climate change" OR "global warming"

  • "artificial intelligence" OR "AI"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • access* (in this example, the search access* will search for records that contain strings such as accessible and accessibility)

Conducting Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save). If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar (and Basic Google Search)

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "climate change"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • "climate change" OR "global warming"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • ethic* (in this example, the search ethic* will search for records that contain strings such as ethics, ethical, and ethically)

• Use intitle: to limit your search to search terms only appearing in the title of a resource:

  •  intitle:"climate change"

• Use filetype: to specify the type of file you would like to retrieve in your results:

  • filetype:pdf

• Use site: to limit your search to specific web domains:

  • site:.edu

  • site:.gc.ca

• Use source: to limit your search to results from a specific publication:

  • source:global challenges

• Combine operators to power search!

  • intitle:"climate change" source:global environmental change

What is Grey Literature?

Some examples of grey literature:

• Society annual reports, policy papers, practice guidelines, issue briefs, newsletters, white papers, government documents, speeches.

Grey literature includes research- and evidence-based documents that are written by academic or professional experts on topics relevant to their professions, clients, communities or society in general (and that are not formally published in a journal or book).

These documents are produced by various groups including government agencies, non-government/not-for-profit organizations, industry groups, think tanks, research centres, service agencies, and professional organizations.

• Note: The quality of this literature can vary a lot, so be sure to critically evaluate the sources you find. 

Why Do I Want to Use it?

• Grey literature tends to be more practice-oriented -- it reports on activities done by an organization or on the research they do, and is published with professionals, practitioners, and policy makers in mind.

• Grey literature can be published and shared online with little or no cost, so it is often widely accessible to everyone (if you know how to find it!).

• It can provide examples of best practices, guidelines, and recommendations for things like service provision, program design and implementation, policy development, and advocacy.

• Peer reviewed research is slow to produce and publish, and sometimes the most recent and relevant information is shared in a report rather than a journal article.

Where Do I Find it?

The Canadian Public Documents Collection at MRU Library (see the Canada Commons link below) is a great source that includes research papers, reports, studies, policy papers & briefs, environmental scans and more. 

The Web is the best place to find these types of documents.

• Hint: it helps if you know some of the agencies or organizations related to your topic where you can start your search (browse these websites to help generate some ideas for the types of website you’re looking for). For example, the Edmonton Social Planning Council conducts research and analysis on social issues. They have links to reports and publications on their website.

Browse this list of think tanks and research organizations for ones who research and report on social issues in Canada. Search their websites for the publications and other information resources they provide.

How Do I Search for it?

Often, these types of documents do not appear in the results of a basic Google search. 

Use advanced search techniques in Google to find reports and other documents that don't come up in a simple search (often because they are attached as PDFs rather than as part of the website content).

You can simply search the name of an organization or another relevant keyword, and include the word report.

Example:     child protection alberta filetype:pdf OR intitle:report

Grey Literature Web Sources

• Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal

Advocacy Groups and Policy Organizations

Advocacy Groups and Policy Research Organizations provide in depth analysis and critical evaluation of legislation and its impact on the people it serves. Look on these organizations' websites for policy briefs, research reports, etc.

These documents can be found under headings such as research, publications, press releases or resources.

Example: Closing the Gap Between Vision and Reality

Examples of research institutes, think tanks and advocacy groups:

• First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

• Centre for Social Justice

• Homeless Hub

• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Activity: Types of Sources

To make sure we are all on the same page, let's put our knowledge to the test.

Skim the following resources available through the links keeping in mind the types of sources we have discussed in class.

Vote whether you think each source is a scholarly article, grey literature, legislation, or a webpage.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation).

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Referencing (2022-2023)
  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Formatting a Paper (2022-2023)
  • CRJS Citation Guide 2023/2024 (look at this for legal citation examples starting on page 21 if you're citing legislation or regulations)

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.